LEXINGTON, Ky. — LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky beat No. 10 LSU 35-34 in overtime on Saturday night, its second straight overtime win, and the final number matched a season-ticket envelope that had been sealed since April.
Dale Pruitt, 61, a regional sales manager from Versailles, has held the same two seats in the lower bowl since 1996. He said the envelope arrived in the spring with the schedule, a parking pass and a half-page insert that asks holders to “forecast the margin.” He said he wrote nothing on it. He did not open it again until halftime.
“I opened the envelope at halftime, and it already said thirty-five to thirty-four,” Pruitt said. “I thought it was a misprint. Then I thought it was a joke from the athletic department. Then the game kept going, and I stopped thinking.”
The game went where the envelope said it would. Kentucky beat LSU in overtime when quarterback Kenny Minchey scored on a two-point conversion. It was Kentucky’s second straight overtime win.
Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center for Measured Outcomes, said the Center has tracked printed forecasts at sporting events since 2014. She said the record is thin on envelopes. “A printed margin is a guess that has been laminated,” Teller said. “This one was printed in April, which means somebody in April knew the overtime result. We would need the printer’s calendar.”
Pruitt said he had called the athletic department on Sunday morning. He said a representative told him the insert is produced by a vendor, that the vendor is unavailable on weekends and that the department has no comment on the score. He said the representative also asked whether he would like to renew.
Pruitt said he has filled in the insert every season since 2011, usually with a pencil kept in the glovebox of his truck, and that the blank space on this year’s sheet was the first he had ever left alone. The final score had been printed in the box beside it, in small type, by someone he has never met.
Pruitt said he had renewed. He said he would not open the envelope for the next home game, because he is no longer sure which of the two is the forecast and which is the result.
Asked whether he planned to watch LSU’s next game, Pruitt said he would, with the envelope on the table and his hands on his knees, where he could see both.